Range Of Ls On A Tank

[simcom]

Hello,

I'm a fresh user of LS and I would like to know few things about this car. Especially I would like to know whot is the fuel consumcion of you LS's.What is the range of your car because there is a probability that my range is about 300 miles...I think something is wrong, but I dont know what...(how many octane fuel do you use?)I have to replace sparks, and probably oxygen sensor neer catalitic conv. (sorry for some words but my english isn't wery well) Could you also tell me how to reduce the fuel consumcion????. I have also niticed that my engine is wet from downside, and actually I dont know what it is. Powersteering, Oil from engine - and if it is, could you tell me from where are the most common leaks in your cars...MY LS is from 90'. thanks for any answers, and really HEEELP :)

My Regards

simcom@op.pl

[silvermate]

i calculated my gas mileage on the last tank at about 475 miles, which is about 23-24 miles to the gallon on Exxon 93, thats city and freeway. 300 miles is awful low. like you said its very likely you need a tune up. also check your air filter.

mainly, the car will drive itself once you get going, i guess some people can milk gas a little better than others.

about the leak, it just depends on where it is. yes power steering pump leak is a common leak. you would want to check that b/c if its leaking on your alternator it will fry it out. also there could be a valve gasket leak, just depends on where the leak is in the engine ie..front/back. if you take a flashlight and look around under there i'm sure you can troubleshoot and find where the leak is, and go from there. it could be a just a minor leak, but if you said that it was really wet i would try and find out imediately.

hope this helps a little.

[simcom]

Thanks, actually you helped me, but if you could tell me what part especially I should replace with new one. Like I said ealier it's a 90' LS (158000 miles).I'm from Poland, here, our mechanics aren't as good as yours there in USA (Even in Lexus dealer). I know that having the Lexus is quite expensive, but more expensive is when my car is repaired in authorized repair station. of course I have very good mechanic (friend), but you know, he cannot repair my car when he is at work. If you are the lexus owner, probably you had those problems I'm talking about. I know also, that I have to change oil in engine, in transmission, every filter and spark plugs. Probably also a timing belt because this is important. About this leak, when I find it, I will repair it of course. For me unfortunatelly the most important are costs, so those 260 miles on a tank is a bit strange...even verrrry strange. Here fuel is very expensive...too expensive to tank a car with every stupid 260 miles. ohh, and one more, do you here a differend sound when you are driving and when your engine is on idle????I mean, do you somehow here transmission??? Thanks for any answers!!!! AND HEEEEEELP

Ps. Leak is somewhere at front of the engine, but yes engine is wet from downside, using my words: oil pan and sth horizontally positiones between wheels,the rest of it I can't see...

[99lsguy]

You should find a sticker under the hood (somewhere) if the timing belt was replaced.

Get you VIN # and run a check thru a local Lexus dealer...if the car was serviced by Lexus, they'll tell you all the history.

My 99LS idles @ 750-800 rpms in Park. I can hear it then a little. When I'm cruising on the road I don't hear it at all. At a stop light, (with brakes on when car is on idle and in Drive, I don't hear it at all either....my RPM's drop to about 600 with brake on in Drive.

99

[VMF]

my car idles at 600 rpm and once i got 540 miles when i was driving on a highway nonstop.:)

in the city its even less then 300 most of the time

for your LS you should check your steering system as it is known to cause problems. i dont know any other common places where it should leak in your car

[simcom]

Hehehe, everything is nice, of course I'm cruizing slowly or trying to do that. Problem is...are you trying to tell me that 260 miles on a tank is normal?with 85 litters tank with of course 4.0l engine this is a bit big consumpcion,dont ya think?in catalog is written that LS 400 uses 12-16 litter of fuel for 100km...and more if i'm not cruizing but "racing" through the city. But I wasnt racing....just "low riding" :D, this is my problem...I use LS in the city, but I think I should have 350 miles or more on my tachometer when I go tank it. What do you say??????

[mapman]

Is that 350 miles or 350km

[simcom]

I'm talking about miles. I would like to cruise minimum 350 miles on a tank, not a 260miles... This is the problem....Someone ealier said that he can cruise 450...At present- this is my dream....so guys...whats wrong with my car??????

[VMF]

there are 2 types of gas mileage

1 for the city and its usually varies from 250 to 300+

2 highway mileage usually varies in 400-500 miles radius

[90LS400Lexus]

When I first got my 90 LS400- I was only getting about 200 miles per tank. Perhaps bad gas? Now, I get much better. Currently I have exactly 1/2 tank of gas in my car and I have put 199 miles on it since i filled it up. I am hoping to get 200 more out of the other 1/2. The miles are mixed- city and interstate. I am guessing most are city miles. Still seems like poor MPG since the tanks are so big on these cars.

[simcom]

You see...200 miles on 1/2 of tank. Not 260 on 1/1.:D . I use my rather in the city and try to go slow(I mean max 60mph) or try to do so. The problem is I unfortunatelly see, that "fuel marker is going down... at my sight....) Ouch....it hurts, especially when I go slowly. Something I have to do...even if I have to reduce my fuel consumpcion to hmmm 330 miles on a tank. Maybe for you this is funny, but when I recalculate it to kilometres this is a very good score. Before LS I had toyota Vitz (Yaris) 1.0... The tank was 42 litres, and my average mileage was 450-500km. I know that ls has a biiger tank and engine, but this is new V8 and it sholdn't drink so much fuel as for example old camaro...20 litters per 60 miles is a bit big number...for me...Jesus, I have also girlfriend, I need money for her, not only for fuel....So WTF... is wrong with my car???? Guys... any ideas?????

What kind of fuels do you have in US??? I have normal unleaded 95, normal 98, shell v-power 95, v power 99+, and of course diesel. Do you have something similar to this??? when I had Yaris I was using this funny racing 99+ but it gave me nothing special- no power- nothing except smooth engine vithout vibrations. What kind do you use??? What exacly mean premium...should I treat it like 95 or rather like 98 Octane fuel???

All my questions might be funny for you but trully - your world is different...probably better then my...and here evrything is different...

[spiller91ls]

I typically get around 600 miles per tank, and this last trip I made I got 26.7 mpg. one thing that I think a lot of the lexus owners might be basing there milage on in actually trying to use the fuel level gauge as a reference, and the only thing that can be used is the low level light ( you have 5 gallons left when the light goes off). this is usually how many miles I have for each mark on the guage.

3/4 full - 120 miles

1/2 full - 200 miles

at around 3/8 full - 340 miles

1/4 full - 400 miles

empty mark 530 miles

low level light goes on around 1/8 mark

so try and run your tank down to the low level light and fill it up to the top of the filler neck and use that as your reference.

this up coming weekend I'll be making my once a month 540 mile round trip from Silver City, New Mexico to Pheoinx, Arizona, and I just got myself a digital camera, I'll take pictures of the guages to you can see some actuall proof of this kind of milage,

[simcom]

Great!!!! Thanks!!!! It would be nice. So in fact... something is wrong with my LS. And about leak...This leak is for 90% from powersteering. Everything is wet downside, so I cant tell ya where exacly is. But this is a red fluid. I hope there is no oil leak from engine. What else...ohh, the most important for me is average mileage on a full tank in the city (slow driving max 60mph). And about my mileage...I had 261 miles, when this low level light went on. So I filled up my tank. And ealier, a week ago, when i bought it I filled tank to max. level...(I had fuel on my shoes...:D) and the result of this is 261 miles....

[silvermate]

the red fluid is ATF probably leaking from the powersteering pump, id get that looked at so you don't have to buy a new alternator too.

[simcom]

Engine starts well, i think so. But I have to find out where is this leak. Probably replacing seals will be enough, probably not...(new PS pump costs here 800$) It's a bit expensive... probably I will buy used one in good condition...Unfortunatelly fuel is more expensive...with these 261 miles per tank:)

Could somebody tell me what should I replace to reduce this consumpcion????

1)sparks

2)oils and filters

What else should I change????? Any Ideas???

[silvermate]

ok, this is getting a little redundant, we said try to give it a tune up, once again plugs, wires, dist. cap, rotors, air filter and go from there, if not try fuel filter, and so on. your either just going to have to trouble shoot with the ideas we have given you or taken in to an expert mechanic.

[clacey]

What year is your car and how many miles has it been driven.

I have a 1991 LS400 with 213000 miles that was getting bad mileage like this (about 10 miles per gallon) and here is what I replaced:

air filter

spark plugs

distributor caps and rotors

front oxygen sensors

and cleaned the intake housing

The intake cleaning helped a lot. It was very dirty and I found that the Pipe going into the egr valve from inside the housing was almost completely clogged.

Fuel economy is back to normal.

CL

[simcom]

90 LS 157000 miles.

Sorry silvermate...I know that my questions are stupid and boring. I know!!!! But you have to forgive me... BTW, I will replace all those things but I have one more question: what exacly is: distributor cap and rotor... like I said I have some problems with english language, so I dont know all those names ect. Could you explain me like to the child what is this????

And this is all for a while... Thanks everybody!!!!!

[silvermate]

no prob. i just thought you were asking the same question again. the dist. is located on either side of the front part of the engine it is covered by a black protective cap. inside is the dist. cap that the spark plug wires connect to the points. the other end of the spark plug wires goes to the plug . the rotors are located under the dist cap. and i would recomend you change all of those. its very simple, sorry i don't have any pics to further help you.

[VBdenny]

Hopefully you didn't buy the LS for fuel economy because they are gas hogs. Sucking down Premium at $1.65 a gallon will eat up some funds. Flooring it really makes them suck down the tank, but it is fun.

Power steering leaks are a pain. You should plan on about 1000 - 1500 bucks to have it fixed. Before you do, I would certainly check the steering rack to make sure it isn't leaking as well. It IS best to change everything, pump, hoses and rack, at the same time to eliminate contamination. It will probably cost about the same for this repair as what you paid for the car.

I use the cheapest 93 octane I can find.

[mac]

I get at least 250 miles per full tank doing Los Angeles city driving. On freeways I get much better gas mileage. I know this cause I was able to drive from L.A. to Las Vegas (280miles) using only half a full tank of gas. I do have an aftermarket cone filter intake instead of the stock intake which I think doesn't make much of a difference. If anything I think it may be giving me worse city mpg. Don't know about freeway though.

[wandawoods]

.... what exacly is: distributor cap and rotor...

here is a picture showing distributor caps are off to expose distributor rotors inside CAM shaft.

I got them changed while TB replacement was done.

[K9crew]

I typically get around 600 miles per tank, and this last trip I made I got 26.7 mpg. one thing that I think a lot of the lexus owners might be basing there milage on in actually trying to use the fuel level gauge as a reference, and the only thing that can be used is the low level light ( you have 5 gallons left when the light goes off). this is usually how many miles I have for each mark on the guage.

WOW!!! The most I ever got on one tank is 456.1 miles. I added 19.241 gallons at the gas station so I had about 0.8 gallons left in the tank. My calculated fuel mileage was 23.7 mpg on that tank. That was non-stop interstate driving at 75mph. You must live in a flat state, only drive on the interstate and never exceed 60 mph!

If you're getting around 600 miles on one tank, which in my car holds 20 gallons, then you're getting over 30 mpg!!! The only "easy" and accurate way to calculate fuel mileage is to fill up the tank, let the pump click off then slowly add more fuel until the pump clicks off , then slowly add more fuel one more time until the pump clicks off . Drive the car until the tank is low, fill up in the same way at the same pump allowing the pump to click off three times. Divide the miles driven on that tank by the gallons of fuel just added. I do this regularly. With my F-350 diesel I could fill up until the fuel was right to the top of the filler neck. That was the most accurate way to determine fuel mileage since I could fill up to exactly the same mark every time. I don't believe that you can reley on the low fuel light to give an accurate indication of how much fuel is in the tank. As for the onboard computer, the mpg figures are always wrong and always high by as much as 3mpg!!

:)

[1UZ-FE]

u think u got bad gas milage?? i only get 260 miles to the tank. thats 14 mpg!!

i am aware that i need plugs and wires b/c they r the original. i just got a new TB and air filter.

[mickg]

I just noted my last consumption (pump click-off to pump click-off) was 18.2 gals for 292 miles; i.e. 16 mpg (14.75 liters/100 km) for stop & go in-city driving, with ECT-power switch "on".

My Suburban would give me about 14 mpg around town; my wife's Volvo 850 turbo wagon gets about 19 mpg.

I enjoy pressing the loud pedal, and I guess I have to feed the beast!

Mick